


Summer-Spun Snowflakes

by SophiaThePixelGarden



Category: Cow Chop, The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Pre Cow Chop, the creatures' office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:05:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7848001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaThePixelGarden/pseuds/SophiaThePixelGarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where did the name Cow Chop come from, anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer-Spun Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

> merghhhhhgfdjnkfdn.....  
> It probably helps if you know about the Creatures/Cow Chop drama. It probably doesn't make as much sense if you don't
> 
> ***If you watch the Creatures and enjoy their current content then maybe don't read this, it might just piss you off***  
> ***I do not care if you like or hate the Creatures, please just don't spam me with hate for writing this FICTITIOUS fan FICTION which is NOT REAL and FAKE***

It was the exhaustion that put him there in the first place, stoically sitting at his desk in the night so late that it began to fold over into morning, and it was the fresh, still-bleeding break up that kept him there, listening as James stood over his desk, talking.

“Aleks? Are you paying attention?” he asked, banging one hand on the table, making the monitor jiggle. Aleks shook his head, struggling to focus his blurred eyes on James. It was difficult to see anything clearly in the darkness of the office, only broken by the light of Aleks’ blue-tinted computer screen and desk lamp.

“Yeah, dude, I’m just…just waiting for this render to finish,” he replied, biting back a yawn before clicking his mouse sporadically, mindlessly flicking through dozens of programs and webpages that had nothing to do with processing videos.

James crossed his arms, scrutinizing his weak attempt to fake productivity until Aleks eventually slumped his shoulders and sighed, reluctantly leaning back in his wrinkled, leathery office chair.

“Okay, what do you want?” he asked, glancing behind James at the dark row of empty desks, all littered with seemingly random memorabilia, from an impressive collection of loosely Batman-related figurines to a pair of multi-coloured dragon dildos.

“Come on, Aleksandr,” James said, shifting from one foot to another. His shoes squeaked as he accidentally pushed them together, soles digging into the thin, grey carpet below.

In the wall-length windows, painted black by the sky and stained with glimmering sparks of stars and snow, Aleks could see his own reflection. Illuminated by the computer’s never-ending glow, it absently stared back.

He hated it.

“I know what’s going on.”

Aleks’ jaw clenched, teeth half an inch short of biting into his cheek.

“Because you always know everything, right, James?” Aleks spat, eyes fixated on the irritatingly bright screen in front of him. James stood a little straighter against the desk, one hand gripping the edge.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Aleks seethed, anger boiling thickly under his skin, spilling over into his voice.

“I meant that I know you’ve been thinking about it.”

“Thinking about what?” Aleks asked, standing up, almost level with him.

“Leaving the Creatures,” James said, brown eyes studying Aleks’ face, mouth drawn up in concern.

Aleks just laughed, a shocking, venomous thing, expecting James to flinch at the sound, slightly unnerved when he didn’t.

“Wow, James,” he said, brushing off his feeling of unease, “Great job. You watched one of my update videos. Good for you.”

“No, I didn’t,” James argued, lips curling into a frown. “I don’t have to watch some fucking video to figure out what’s going on.”

“Oh, really? Then how did you just _figure out_ what I’ve been thinking about?” Aleks began, prepared to shoot out another smartass remark.

James breathed out, eyes rolling up to the ceiling, pushing against the table with both hands.

“Because I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

Aleks felt his teeth click together, his eyes widening, locked onto James who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look back at him.

“You don’t…” Aleks blinked, quietly continuing, “You don’t mean that, do you?”

The soft, once inaudible snowfall outside suddenly became unbearable to Aleks. Chunks of snow heaved and whistled through the wind as shards of ice smashed against the windows, glass against glass, volatile. And yet, Aleks heard James’ faint reply with crystal-clear clarity.

“Yeah, I do.”

 

On one hand, Aleks understood completely.

The constant censoring; the pandering; the production of total garbage just to please the unintelligent masses: those were the things that pushed Aleks away from the office, pulled him into his house on the weekends. They leeched off his energy, draining him during every fucking corporate meeting.

He was beginning to hate his life’s dream, because it had become a dull set of motions, trapped inside a cage, made to fit in a box.

But on the other hand, Aleks could not even begin to imagine a life without the one person that, even after all this time, had made him stay. At that moment, he felt his body rip in two, like a cheap sheet of fabric, torn between what was safe, and what he wanted.

“It feels difficult just to wake up most days, doesn’t it?” James implored, seeming to tower over Aleks. “Like everything has just become a performance for someone else.”

Aleks nodded slowly, looking down, speaking.

“So…so that’s it?” he asked, desperation evident as he began to rush through his words. “We’re just going to leave? Like Seamus and Sly and-- and everyone else?”

“Well,” James said, a hint of something shaped like a smile beginning to balloon in his face, “not exactly. You see, I decided to tell you this stuff for a reason, Aleks. Not just so that we can brood over our misfortunes. The thing is, I sort of had this…idea.”

Aleks was silent, watching on as James began to explain himself.

“I mean, I haven’t really thought it through properly or anything, but I was just thinking…well, what if we started something different? Something that we owned – a place where we could control what we kind of content we created?”

“What do you mean?” Aleks asked, listening intently.

“What if we made a joint channel, where we just played games together? You know, sort of like Game Grumps. A couch-op!” he exclaimed, bouncing slightly on his feet.

Scrunching his eyes, Aleks repeated the unfamiliar phrase, misunderstanding.

“A cow-chop?” he asked, and James chuckled, shaking his head and smiling, fondly, about to correct Aleks, until he stopped, suddenly frowning in concentration. Aleks was half a moment away from asking why James looked so deep in thought until a memory, strangely shaped like warm waves on white, summer sand, washed over him, pulling him under.

 

It was the 2015 Road to E3, and the group had ended up at some local, yet oddly extravagant carnival. Aleks remembered wandering past the rides, all decorated with brightly-coloured balloon animals, pointing and joking with James by his side. The two had strayed from the group, fascinated by the twisting and turning concrete path that slithered through the fair, sharing a pink bouquet of cotton candy. Sweetness stuck to the roof of Aleks’ mouth and  stained James’ lips with wet, red droplets of sugar. That day, Aleks felt like his skin was unbearably hot against the cool, Colorado air.

A static-cut image of a cheesy horror house floated to the top of his mind, screams bursting through the walls, even though Aleks doubted if the decorations were capable of scaring a 12 year old. He had still gripped James’ shoulder, the t-shirt soaked with sweat under alien, ectoplasm lights, perhaps just to have something to hold.

His brain spun in his skull at the memory of the spinning teacups that made it almost impossible to walk in a straight line after just one ride. He thought back to how he reluctantly suppressed the childish urge to clap his hands and scream “again!” over and over, instead coolly shrugging and replying with a “whatever” when James asked if he wanted another ride.

 

But rising above all of that, like a smoke that still somehow carried an enormous weight with it, was that dinky little racing game, with the small, cardboard cutout cows, cheaply painted in black and white. Each one was assigned to a different person, and the speed of an individual "steed" was controlled by how many shots one made in a miniature game of ski-ball.

Aleks loved that stupid game, screaming as he struggled, laughing as he lost, rules a daydream in his fairy tale moment.

And Aleks remembered, looking over to those brown-black-whatever eyes, a row of dangling carnival lights bouncing back, twinkling vividly, among other things.

Aleks remembered.

 

“Cow…chop,” James repeated, entranced. “I actually meant, as in, couch co-op,” he quickly explained, eyes somewhere else as Aleks nodded, suddenly realizing his mistake.

“Right, sorry,” he replied, face instantly flickering down, staring back at the concrete-coloured carpet. Inside himself, he began to dig up a pile of dirt, eager to bury the unearthed, strawberry sugar-coated memory back.

 _I can’t think about that_ _anymore,_ Aleks chastised, angered by his own naivety. _Things can never be that good again._

A white-hot lightning bolt dashed across James’ face, branching across to build a bright grin in an eighth of a second, matching the speed of the torrential, increasingly ferocious snowstorm outside.

“Aleks _andr_ ,” James teased, wrapping one arm around Aleks’ shoulders, pulling him in. “Please, don’t be _sorry_. Shit, if anything, I should be thanking you!”

“What?” Aleks raised an eyebrow, not expecting the warmth of such a powerful hug. “Why?”

“Because you just came up with the name for our new channel!”

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> The video referenced by the "carnival" bit is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lqnGx2SqHM
> 
> Please leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed this :)  
> I'm thinking about writing more novaHD stuff but idk  
> (Also, I totally understand that this wasn't even that shippy.  
> perhaps I can make up for it in the future?)
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
